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“... of war. The Bush administration ‘fought one of its fiercest internal brawls’ – Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld on one side, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice on the other – ‘before Bush ratified the policy that Cheney had declared: the Geneva Conventions would not apply to al-Qaida or Taliban fighters captured on the battlefield.’ Since the War ...”

“... America’s foreign enemies would face trial before specially created executive tribunals, and Donald Rumsfeld was soon explaining what that was about. The judges would be chosen by Rumsfeld or a person appointed by him. Only active or retired military officers would be eligible. Evidence would be admissible ...”

“... Seely and set as verse. Most of the poems in Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld (Simon and Schuster, £8.99) are short enough to be sent by text message. Here’s ‘In the Red Sea’: The Red Sea begins and ends. And then there’s an area Just beyond the Red Sea, And it may very well ...”

“... for Lockheed products) and head of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. Another member was Donald Rumsfeld. Reappointed defence secretary by Bush in 2001, Rumsfeld paid tribute to Andrew Marshall and announced that he would effect ‘transformation’ on the Pentagon. This provoked resistance: the military ...”

“... by the CIA and other agencies, a process known as ‘stovepiping’. This means that Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz judge the veracity of reports from the field themselves (or with their staffers) without the information having first been ‘subjected to rigorous scrutiny’, and then rush the most damning reports into speeches, such as ...”

“... trusted to keep them. When the younger Bush, after the 2006 election, brought in Gates to replace Donald Rumsfeld at defence, he would have had in mind that history of loyalty to the Bush family. With Abu Ghraib and Bagram and Guantánamo to think of, Gates was a man to trust. Also, Gates might help to slow and muffle the incessant pressure from Cheney ...”

“... of pre-emptive war. Nor is the US showing any greater respect for international humanitarian law. Donald Rumsfeld has even refused formally to accord Saddam prisoner of war status: a remarkable decision, given that Saddam is a recently defeated commander-in-chief of the armed forces of a UN member state, but of course it’s a decision that allows for ...”

“... the CIA’s crimes are only part of the story. Torture was also practised by the US military after Donald Rumsfeld signed a memorandum on 22 December 2002 authorising ‘counter resistance techniques’. Rumsfeld personally signed off on Slahi’s ‘special interrogation plan’ at Guantánamo. It began with solitary ...”

“... however. The first signs came in 2003, when Henry Hyde, a Republican congressman, sent a letter to Donald Rumsfeld, expressing his ‘growing concerns about Afghanistan and the impact of illicit drugs on the fight against global terrorism’. Then, on a surprise visit to Kabul in August 2004, Rumsfeld himself said that ...”

“... the neoconservative Democrats who moved over to join the Reagan administration was Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld’s deputy at the Pentagon. According to Mann’s collective biography of the ‘Vulcans’, the key decision-makers in the new Republican defence establishment, Wolfowitz ‘got out just in time’, resigning from the Carter administration ...”

“... leader able to win the next general election. Predictably, the new leader was a disaster. Because Donald Rumsfeld had flattered him by deigning to see him in Washington, Duncan Smith became as willing a slave of President Bush as the British prime minister was. Unlike Clarke, he strongly and unthinkingly supported Bush and Blair’s disastrous and ...”

“... force commander told Ricks. The Defense Department was initially coy about these bases. In 2003, Donald Rumsfeld said: ‘I have never, that I can recall, heard the subject of a permanent base in Iraq discussed in any meeting.’ But this summer the Bush administration began to talk openly about stationing American troops in Iraq for years, even ...”

“... to back the war or become as ‘irrelevant’ as the League of Nations. A week later, a gung-ho Donald Rumsfeld said that an unsupportive UN might ‘fall into the dustbin of history, as did the League of Nations’. For the next six or seven months, the administration and its cheerleaders gleefully stuck the boot in, time after time. Why give the UN ...”

“... committees, including the Defense Policy Board, run by Richard Perle (who was appointed by Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz), where Israeli security is equated with US security. According to Jason Vest in the Nation, JINSA spends the ‘bulk of its budget taking a bevy of retired US generals and admirals to Israel’: when they come ...”

“... wars, of which this is the third volume.* Woodward is not only granted audiences: he interviews Donald Rumsfeld, and others, at his home, in his own kitchen, over supper. If you’re Nigella-ish, you’ll be disappointed by his non-disclosure of what there was to eat.This hasn’t always been so. Woodward’s first Watergate article wasn’t about the ...”